SCENE VI. Violent Delights, not lafting. Lovers, light of Foot. O fo light of foot Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint; ACT III. SCENE IV. A Lover's Impatience. Gallop apace, you fiery footed fleeds, To Phoebus' manfion; fuch a waggoner As Phaeton, would whip you to the west, And bring in cloudy night immediately. Spread thy clofe curtain, love-performing night, That (5) th' run-aways eyes may wink; and Romeo Leap to thefe arms, untalkt of, and unseen, Lovers can fee to do their am'rous rites By their own beauties: or, if love be blind; It beft agrees with night.. (5) The run-aways, &c.] that is, the fun: whom he elegantly calls the run-away, in reference to the poetical account of the fun driving his chariot of light thro' the heavens, and running down to the weft from the eyes of mortals to the arms of his celeftial mistress. SCENE ་། SCENE V. Romeo, on his Banifoment. SCENE, The monastry. Romeo and the Friar. Rom. (6) Ha, banishment! be merciful, fay death; For exile hath more terror in his look Than death itself. Do not fay banishment. Fri. Here from Verona art thou banished: Be patient, for the world is broad and wide. Rom. There is no world without Verona's walls, Hence banished, is banish'd from the world, Rom. 'Tis torture, and not mercy: heav'n is here O father, hadst thou no strong poison mixt, (6) Ha, &c.] The reader will find in the 131ft page of the firft volume, a paffage or two, that well deferve to be compar'd with this before us. No No fharp-ground knife, no prefent means of death, O friar, the damned use that word in hell; Rom. O thou wilt fpeak again of banishment. Fri. Let me difpute with thee of thy eftate. Rom. Thou canst not fpeak of what thou dost not feel: Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love, Then might'st thou fpeak, then might'it thou tear thy hair, And fall upon the ground as I do now, J SCENE SCENE VII. Juliet's Chamber, looking to the Enter Romeo and Juliet above at a window; a ladder of ropes fet. Jul. Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day: Rom. It was the lark, the herald of the morn, ᎠᎴ (7) It was, &c. The poets abound with numberlefs fimilies and frequent mention of the nightingale: fhe. as well at the clofe of the evening when the fings, feems to have been a favorite of Milton: the paffages in his works are well known; the following fine fimile, tho' perhaps not fo apt to our prefent purpose, yet as little known, I cannot help recommending : I have heard Two emulous philomels beat the ear of night With their contentious throats, now one the higher, And by and by out-breafted, that the fenfe, See Two noble Kinsmen, A. 5. Sc. 3. (8) Look, &c.] The poets in general feem to have exerted themfelves in their defcription of the morning: the English may juftly claim the preference over the Greeks and Romans, and Shakespear I think over all the prefent paffage is fufficient to fet in competition with all we can produce and the reader by referring to the index will find many others, equally beautiful. However, according to my promife, (fee vol. 1. p. 86. n.12.) I must remember to quote fome defcriptions, the better to fet forth Shakespear's fuperior excellence: Hamer has led the way, and in almoft innumerable places, fpoken of the morning" as a goddess or divine perfon flying in the air unbarring the gates of light, and opening the day. She is drawn by him in a faffron robe, and with rofy hands (gododaxrun which is the epithet he almost conftantly bestows upon her. and perhaps may vie with any other however beautiful) fprinkling light thro' the earth. She arifes out of the waves of the fea, leaves the bed of Tithon her lover, afcends the Do lace the fevering clouds in yonder east: Jul. the heavens, appears to gods and men, and gives notice of the fun's rifing. She is placed by the father of the poets fometimes on a throne of gold; now in a chariot drawn by fwift horfes, and bearing along with her the day; and at other times the is ufhered in by the ftar, which is her harbinger, and which gives the fignal of the morning's approach,---On this as a ground. the poets following Homer, have run their divifions of fancy: this will appear by the following instances, &c. See Lay Monastery, p. 229. See Dryden's Virgil for the enfuing; Aurora now had left her faffron-bed, And beams of early light the heav'ns o'erfpread. The morn enfuing from the mountains height, Quid by Trap, Lo from the rofy Eaft her purple doors, The morn unfolds adorn'd with blufhing flowers, The purple morning left her crimson bed, Spenfer, in his Faerie Queene. Now when the rofy-finger'd morning fair, Had feread her purple robes thro' dewy air, The royal virgin, &c. At laft the golden oriental gate Of greatest heaven 'gan to open fair And Phabus fresh as bridegroom to his mate Came |